


The Ache For Home Lives in All of Us (where thou art, that is home)

by thestrongeststars



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Gen, I Made Myself Cry, Murder-Suicide, Stephen Stanley commits a murder suicide, but not before thinking about his daughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23355094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestrongeststars/pseuds/thestrongeststars
Summary: Stephen Stanley just wants to go home and see his daughter again.Written for The Terror Bingo square: home.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2019)





	The Ache For Home Lives in All of Us (where thou art, that is home)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a mashup of a quote from Maya Angelou and Emily Dickinson. Mentions of suicide and murder underneath the cut.

Stephen Stanley wanted to go home. He didn’t remember, as much as he tried, what the house looked like. He remembered the fireplace, his bedroom, and Emma’s room. He didn’t want to return there as much as he wanted to see Emma again. He wanted to see her play with her toys in front of the fireplace in winter, every once in a while getting up to see the snow outside, her blue eyes lighting up with joy and insisting on going out there, dragging him along with her. He wanted to feel her crawl beside him and Mary while they slept, her little warm body burrowing against him, claiming it was too cold in her room, or that she had a bad dream. It had been a little bit of a nuisance while she did it, but now he would do anything to have her do it again. He wanted to carry her to bed and to tuck her in, reading a story as she fell asleep, occasionally stroking her thick, blonde hair.

He remembered Mary too, but that was because he couldn’t look at Emma without seeing Mary, she looked very much like her mother. Emma had gotten her mother’s lighter, wavier hair, darker eyebrows, and mouth, while she had gotten his eyes and nose. He remembered staying up late at night with Mary while she was pregnant, discussing their future. He had guessed that they were having a girl, while Mary thought it was a boy. They had decided that they wanted multiple children, no more than three, but more than one.

Stephen knew that Emma would be a single child. He knew that as he began sketching her while in his bunk. Before Emma was born, he had drawn Mary as he last remembered what she looked like, what she had been wearing as they said goodbye. Now, he drew Emma, remembering what she looked like as a little six year-old girl. Now she was eight, and going to turn nine in thirty-five days. He briefly wondered if he should draw her as what he thought she’d look like as a slightly older child, but decided against it. He remembered what her favorite doll’s name was, what her favorite color was, what her favorite animal was (Anne, blue, penguins). By now, all those things could be different. His hand faltered as he drew a line, making it slightly jagged at that thought. He took a deep breath, swallowed and decided he had drawn enough for that night. He grabbed another book, a novel, and tried to read until he fell asleep, but instead he was greeted with visions of Emma. 

_The first time he held her, one of his fingers being firmly grasped by one of her hands. Her blue eyes stared up at him and he fell in love with her, gently talking to her and smiling at her. A couple of weeks later, she began to return his smiles and started to coo back, the two of them having non-existing conversations. A couple of months later and she was walking, shakily from Mary to him as they sat on the ground of her nursery. A couple of years later and she insisted on reading to him and drawing pictures for him to take on his trips._

Stephen paused in his reading and pulled out his book full of sketches again. In the back he had a picture she had drawn of _Erebus._ He looked at it and noted that for a six year-old that decided to draw it hours before his departure, it was really good. She had drawn an arrow pointing to where the sickbay approximately was and next to the arrow she had written, ‘Dad’. 

_“So where will you be on the ship, Dad?” She asked him as they stood near the docks, watching_ Erebus _get loaded with supplies. She had tears in her eyes, knowing that the next day he would be leaving. He gently picked her up, resting her against his body. It was a bit too warm to do so in May, but he didn’t care too much._

_“The sickbay, dear.” He said, running his hands through her hair, taking out some snags that were in it. She sniffled pitifully and Stephen wished that he had chosen a different career, one where he could stay near her._

_“Where’s that? On the ship.” She said, looking back over at_ Erebus _. He told her, pointing in the general area of the ship and explaining which deck it was on, which led to a discussion about the various decks on a ship and what the orlop was and how big his room was and so forth and so on._

Stephen flipped back to the picture of Emma and took a shaky breath at seeing her face. 

_“What happens if you don’t come back?” She said, her voice hoarse as she cried. She was sitting in bed as he came in for their normal bedtime routine, except that it was the night before he left, the last night. He sighed as he sat down in the chair beside her bed and gently picked her off the bed to hold her. He held her small hands with one of his hands and he softly rubbed her back with the other hand._

_“I will come back.” He kissed her forehead. “For you, Emma, I’ll always come back.” He assured her until she fell asleep on him, mouth slightly agape. He hadn’t allowed her to fall asleep crying, he had made sure that she laughed herself into exhaustion. As she cried and wailed at first, he wiped her face and shushed her until she was able to laugh at something humorous he had said._

Stephen shuddered. He wasn’t one for talking to inanimate objects, even art, no matter how human it seemed, but he almost apologized to the picture for lying, for not being able to live up to his promise. He almost begged for forgiveness and ease of mind.

* * *

It was thirty days until Emma would turn nine and Stephen knew that he wouldn’t live to see her again. He kept sketching her though, desperate for any other memories of her, as though remembering her could excuse his thoughts. He thought that if he of all men was longing to go home, all the others were too. He also knew they wouldn’t make it, it was cold outside, there was scurvy, and there was the creature hunting them. Why prolong suffering? Why not just end it all, mercifully? He could not tolerate the memories much longer, he could not tolerate the pain of not having Emma any longer. 

‘Things are going to get worse and worse.’ Goodsir had told him. They wouldn’t, Stephen knew. He wouldn’t allow them to. He hoped Emma would understand - she was fond of trying to make the world around her a better place. He would do so too.

Right before he left for the party, he grabbed his sketch of Emma, glanced at it one last time. He wished he could at least smile in memory of her - she had always been such a happy child, but he couldn’t bring himself to. All of his memories that he had of them together involved them both smiling, but without her presence he cannot find joy. He carefully folded it and put it in his breast pocket. And as he poured the alcohol, and lit the ground on fire, he thought of her, her warm body that found his freezing cold one in the middle of the night, how she loved sitting in front of the fireplace, telling him stories that always made him smile.

“Hold him! Hold him!” Captain Crozier yelled, but Stephen didn’t hear him. He lit himself on fire, rising the torch near his heart, near the picture of Emma. As he burned and walked towards the men, he didn’t see their faces nor the flames. He only saw Emma, wearing the same cap he had just been wearing. It fell down past her eyes and she laughed as she took it off. She ran away from him, towards something else, telling him to see the cherry trees’ blossoms fall with her. Before she got out of his sight, she turned back towards him, grinning and blue eyes shining, head tilting and her blonde hair sticking out in every direction, dry like his hair. 

“Are you coming, Dad? It’s really pretty and it doesn’t last long.” She said to him, manner joyful as ever. Stephen didn’t feel the men pouncing on him or him falling to the ground. He didn’t feel the flames consume his body. All he felt was a great peace descending as he got to go home one last time.


End file.
